This thread has been created in mind as to have a focused discussion on Ryu in his state in SFXT 2013. I know that some of you may have discussed Ryu in the Ryu thread or his combo thread, but I wanted to create an area where Ryu players can specifically discuss and try out new things in SFXT 2013, as well as explaining what he can do in 2013, instead of clustering it all in the General thread with the Vanilla discussion.

To start off this thread, I feel the need to discuss about the lack of love for Ryu:

Most of us get put off when we see players play Ryu in his recent carnations, since SFIV to this day and it is understood that, unless you are Daigo or Uncle Valle, you will be shunned for playing the Wandering Warrior. Why? Many people perceive that Ryu takes no skill to play, that chucking fireballs is all he needs to do to win his matches and that he is so simple to play that no discussion is needed for him. And for the first few weeks of SFXT, this was reinforced by the fact that Ryu played almost too close to his SFIV carnation in addtion to a new pressure option in the form of his Joudan Sokutou Geri and people were complaining about how strong he was and minor nerfs were implied to resolve said “issues”.

Thing is, though, those people were half right; He is simple to play, but to play well, you really have to work at him. Like his SFIV carnation, Ryu was designed in mind to cater to newer players with basic mobility, basic damage output, basic combo difficulty and (usually) 3 special moves to make him simple to play and hard to master. Only with SFXT and SF3 (and the versus series) does he have the Joudan, which adds a new pressure game to Ryu’s already solid zoning game.

In Vanilla SFXT, Ryu can be played almost similarly to his SFIV counter part, and I say almost because zoning in this game is slightly weaker than in SFIV, since his Fireball can be CADC’d leading to a higher startup and some of his frames, like his Solar Plexus Strike were different, plus he has no FADC to Ultra in this game. Other than that, people who played him can just jump in and go… Ummm… well World Warrior on their opponents’ ass. And for most of SFXT’s Vanilla life, he was considered to be an effective, versatile character to play in any team, making him quite high in tier rankings. Hell, he even made it to top 8 in EVO.

But Alas, 2013 is here and like all the cast, he has been changed (nerfed, if you want to be negative) and for better or worse, he can still be played like before but some of his tools are removed and players will have to adapt to it, like his combo strings from cr.lp>cr.lk>cr.mp, is no longer possible. A lot of the changes he has now has made Ryu a more skill based character, and by skill, I mean that he has to read his opponent more, since his hitbox for his mostly used crouching normals has changed and has a 1 frame link for more damage for those that can be consistent with the SPS link.

I think that with 2013 Ryu will have to be more careful now that his footsies game is nerfed. A lot of his pressure still exist, it’s just unsafe and unlikely that the opponent will fall for it a second time and will punish mercilessly. It doesn’t help that Ryu’s damage output is considered low without meter usage, so players will also have to be smart with meter management as well and choosing the right partner which will dish out damage whilst building meter as well. That doesn’t mean he isn’t good at 2013. He is still the same aloof Wandering Warrior we all know.